Although Australian ration packs came with the ‘Field Ration Eating Device’ (FRED) which we looked at here, this was never a particularly popular choice for the men as it was small and difficult to eat quickly with and were obviously of no use when catering came from a field kitchen or in a mess hall. The Australian Army therefore issued a set of knife, fork and spoon to its men and women:

These items of cutlery fit together with the stud on the spoon and the keyway holes on the fork and knife so that its harder to loose items and so they take up less space in a soldier’s kit:

These had to be stacked in the correct order spoon, fork and finally knife:

Each item, is marked with a /|\ stamp and the manufacturer’s name on the reverse:

These KFS sets seem to have been introduced in the 1980s and continued being manufactured through until the 2010s, replacing the older pattern which was a copy of British 1944 pattern KFS set. The curved shape to the knife blade in this set suggests that this is a 1980s manufactured example.